False Peace (9781484719817)

by Watson, Jude

  No expectations. Acceptance.

  It was the Jedi way. And sometimes, so very hard to follow.

  “My relief work,” Astri responded promptly. “The economy of my adopted world, Nuralee, is failing.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Obi-Wan said. “The last time I was on Nuralee it was prospering.”

  She looked down into her empty cup. “That was probably some time ago.”

  Before Bog took office, Obi-Wan guessed.

  “There are many too poor to buy food. I’m here on Coruscant briefly, just to attend a meeting to ask for help from the new All Planets Relief Fund and attend the inaugural ceremony. A Jedi team is acting as couriers and protectors for a shipment of food and medical supplies to Nuralee, and I must return to ensure it gets in the right hands.”

  “Do you know who they are?” Anakin asked.

  “Soara Antana and Darra Thel-Tanis,” Astri said. “I am grateful for their help.”

  You are grateful for the help we give you, but you will not help us. Obi-Wan had the thought but would not say it aloud.

  No expectations. Just acceptance.

  And as he thought the words, his mind cleared. Now that he was sitting quietly with her, he allowed himself to truly look at her, not just her changed hair and clothes, but what her face revealed. Yes, she was distant and remote. But if he removed his own feelings from the situation, he could see more clearly.

  Something was wrong. He was picking up something.

  Fear. She was afraid. But of what?

  “So you are returning soon,” Anakin said.

  “The day after tomorrow. I am anxious to see my son and Didi.”

  Obi-Wan leaned back, still studying Astri without seeming to. She looked away, twining her fingers through the handle of her cup.

  “So has Bog seen what Dex has done to the old place?” Anakin asked in a jovial tone, gesturing toward the red stools and the curved counter.

  Excellent, Anakin. A casual question, but it would give them the information they needed to know. Was there a connection between Bog and the safe house?

  “Yes, he’s been here.” Astri pushed away her empty cup. The subject of her husband didn’t interest her. But they had the answer they wanted.

  Bog had been the one to bring food from Dex’s Diner to Omega and the others. There was a link between them now. Not a link he could prove. But a link.

  Astri began to slide out of the booth. “I should go. I’m late. It’s always good to see you, Obi-Wan. Anakin.”

  She hurried out the door, not waiting for their good-byes. As she left, she almost collided with a cloaked figure who was also leaving.

  Obi-Wan stared after her. Even the way she moved was different. He remembered Astri striding down the streets, her curls flying, her face uptilted, her eyes alight, taking everything in. Now she walked with her head down, her hands thrust into the deep pockets of her tunic.

  “She’s afraid,” he said out loud.

  “Yes,” Anakin said. “But not for herself. For her son.”

  Obi-Wan wrenched his gaze from the departing Astri and looked at his Padawan. More and more, he was recognizing that Anakin’s sensitivity to others was growing and surpassing his in some cases. Anakin often seemed to know what secrets were inside others, what drove them to do the puzzling things they did. It had something to do with his command of the Force, but it was more than that.

  He remembered the words of Ferus, when he had confessed his doubts about Anakin to Obi-Wan on Romln. He had said that Anakin wanted to control everything. Anakin’s gift of seeing inside beings could turn dangerous if he tried to control the feelings he found instead of just observing them.

  But that was a Jedi lesson ingrained in every Padawan. Anakin knew that.

  “Master, I have to ask you something,” he said now. “Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has offered me a chance to observe the proceedings he attends over the next few days. He thinks I would gain insight into the political arena of the Senate.”

  “I agree,” Obi-Wan said. “I have no objections, as long as it doesn’t interfere with our pursuit of Omega. You could learn something valuable that could help us. It is a great honor that Palpatine has bestowed on you, my young Padawan.”

  Dexter waddled out from behind the counter, wiping his four hands on his greasy apron.

  “Obi-Wan! My friend! Why didn’t you come back to the kitchen and greet me?” Dexter’s wide face creased in an enormous grin. “And you brought the tadpole with you!”

  Anakin winced at the nickname. Then he stood up. He had grown since the last time Dexter had seen him, and Dexter burst out with a shout of laughter.

  “Well, you showed me, you did, young Skywalker. I’d say you were full-grown now!” He hooked one enormous foot over a chair rail and dragged it over to the booth, then eased his bulk onto it.

  “Now, what can I get the two of you—ten-alarm chili? Sliders? I’ve got a stew cooking with bantha meat, cooked long and slow to make it tender. I know they say banthas taste like old boots, but they haven’t tasted Dex’s stew! I’ll tell you my secret, boys.” Dex leaned over. “I leave the hooves in the pot while it’s cooking.”

  “Sounds delicious, Dex, but we’ve come for information,” Obi-Wan said quickly, as Anakin’s face paled. “We’re on the trail of some galactic criminals, and we believe they have a taste for your slider garnish.”

  Dex slapped his knees with two of his hands. “And who doesn’t? I’ve got to remember to bottle it. I could make my fortune! One of these days, when I get a minute away from the stove, ha!”

  “One of the criminals is Jenna Zan Arbor.”

  Dex whistled. “A nasty piece of work. Wouldn’t know her to see her, though. And I haven’t heard she’s back on Coruscant.”

  “How about Senator Bog Divinian?”

  “Astri Oddo’s husband? Sure, he’s been here. Likes my sliders. You know, some people find them addictive! Picks up his dinner many a time and brings it back to his lodgings.”

  Obi-Wan briefly described the Slams. “Have you seen them?”

  Dex stroked his chin. “Don’t think so, and haven’t heard of them, either. Hard to say. Here’s the problem—we’ve been too busy here lately to notice much of anything except dirty dishes. And things are set to get even busier tomorrow, because the All Planets Relief Fund Ceremony will be held right across the way.” With one fat finger, Dex pointed out the window to the plaza. “This is the kind of area the Fund will be trying to improve. Anyway, I’ll keep my eye out. Many will be coming to see the big shots like the Chancellor. But most will come, I’d wager, to see a fortune being transferred. Everyone likes to be close to vertex, even if they don’t have any themselves. They feel richer for looking at it—at least until they go home and look around at what they’ve got!” Dex laughed heartily.

  Anakin looked at Obi-Wan. Fortune? Vertex? “What do you mean, Dex?” he asked.

  “Don’t you know the drill? Every planet in the Senate is donating vertex to the new fund. They present it to Palpatine, and then his personal guard brings it to the vault.” Dex pointed across the plaza. “The Bank of the Core. Now don’t be thinking there will be hanky-panky,” he said, waggling his finger. “There will be security like you’ve never seen. Coruscant security and the Chancellor’s Red Guards. Tomorrow they’ll be cordoning off walkways and placing officers around the plaza. A journalist for the HoloNet news even paid me to keep her airspeeder out back so she’d be able to take off quick tomorrow to get to her vidcam studio hookup. I said yes because she was a looker—or maybe it was the credits she put in my hand, ha! Then she goes and parks it so it blocks my food-delivery doors. Left it locked tight as a drum. Now you know I don’t stand for that.” Dex chuckled. “So I got my pal Acey to break in and I moved it myself behind a dumpster.”

  Dex’s words washed over Obi-Wan. There was something here. Item after item clicked in, but he couldn’t add them up.

  “Can we see that airspeeder, Dex?”

&
nbsp; Dex gave him a puzzled look. “Don’t see why, but what I have is yours, Obi-Wan. This way.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Anakin and Obi-Wan followed Dex through the steamy kitchen noisy with clattering pans and spattering grease, through the rear exit doors into the alley. A long airspeeder was parked in an angle, wedged between a dumpster and durasteel trash bins.

  “It’ll smell like old fish tomorrow, but I can’t help it. They can’t block my kitchen,” Dexter said.

  “It’s a Ralion B-14.” Anakin said.

  “Can you show me how it was parked before you moved it, Dex?” Obi-Wan asked.

  Dexter stamped his enormous foot. “Right here. In the way.”

  Obi-Wan bent over and studied a round cover sunk into the duracrete street. He knocked on it with his knuckles. “Utility tunnel.”

  “For my water delivery,” Dexter said. “I know because my water froze last winter, and that’s where they crawled down to fix it.”

  Anakin and Obi-Wan exchanged a glance. It was all adding up.

  “Got to check on my stew. You two come in when you have more time. You know I like to feed you.” Dexter waddled back into the diner.

  “Must have been Valadon in disguise,” Obi-Wan said. “The airspeeder is for their getaway. And here,” he said, stamping his foot on the cover, “is one of the entrance points for the Zone, most likely.”

  Anakin prowled around the airspeeder. “Doesn’t seem to be juiced up, at least on the outside. No extra exhaust valves. Seats four, five in a crunch.” He opened the door and slid inside.

  Obi-Wan entered the speeder from the other end. “Looks clean.”

  “Fully fueled,” Anakin noted.

  Obi-Wan reached over toward the door on his side. Something had drifted down to the floor when he’d opened the door, the tiniest wisp of a thing. Attuned to notice every scrap, he bent over to pick it up. It was a thread. He held it up. Blue.

  “Anything?” Anakin asked.

  “I’ll send it to the Temple lab for analysis, but it looks like standard cloth,” Obi-Wan said, carefully placing it in his utility belt. “Certainly not the septsilk and veda cloth that both Zan Arbor and the Slams like to wear.”

  Anakin murmured a reply, busy studying the engine specs. “This doesn’t make sense,” he said. “The transport body style doesn’t fit the engine. In speeders, you maximize every particle of space. I’d guess there is about three centimeters unaccounted for.”

  “That’s not very much.”

  “Oh, yes it is.” Anakin looked over at his Master. “It’s just like the Slams’ ship. They knew how to hide secret compartments in tiny spaces.”

  Anakin was already reaching under the dash. Obi-Wan felt along the floor and the edges of his seat. He had found a few compartments on the Slams’ ship, but Anakin had found all of them.

  “Got it.” A drawer popped out toward Anakin. He reached inside, then tossed an item to Obi-Wan.

  Obi-Wan examined the palm-sized datapad. He switched it on. “It’s a map of the plaza,” Obi-Wan said as he accessed the file. “With notations on street closings and space lanes.” Obi-Wan pressed a few more indicators. “And the water transport tunnels are marked.”

  “Omega, Zan Arbor, and the Slams are planning to heist the new Relief Fund treasury,” Anakin said. “That’s what they’re after. Not only will it give them a fortune to operate with, it will embarrass Palpatine.”

  “It will be a political victory as well as a personal one. That’s most likely why Bog and Sauro got involved—they are looking at a way to strike a blow against Palpatine. And if they profit from it as well, why not?”

  “With the help of the Zone, a small band like the Slams can get around the entire Coruscant security force,” Anakin said, shaking his head.

  Obi-Wan nodded. “And in his arrogance, Omega expects to defeat the Jedi, too. If the Jedi Order allows the heist to happen, they will be disgraced. That will help Bog and Sauro pass their petition—or win a no-confidence vote against the Chancellor.”

  His eyes gleamed at Anakin, and Anakin caught the spark. He felt a spurt of excitement. The pieces were falling into place.

  “At last we are one step ahead of Omega,” Obi-Wan said. “Now all we have to do is set the trap.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Anakin expected his Master to explode into movement. Obi-Wan never wasted time. Instead, Obi-Wan just looked at him.

  “So?”

  “So?” Anakin asked cautiously.

  “What next?”

  “You want me to decide?”

  Obi-Wan nodded. “When you become a Jedi Knight, you’ll have to strategize as well as act.”

  There were a number of things to be done, and at first, they crowded Anakin’s brain so that he wasn’t sure which to do first. But then a moment later everything was clear and he knew what to do.

  “First, we should contact Siri and Ferus and tell them what we know, so that they can concentrate their study of the water system on the area around the plaza,” Anakin said. “Then, we should contact Master Windu. The Jedi Council needs to come up with its own plans to protect the vertex during the ceremony.”

  “Good.”

  “And we should request a meeting with Chancellor Palpatine,” Anakin went on. “It’s the only way we can get across the seriousness of what we think is going to happen. After all, it’s just guesswork, and it could be easily dismissed. But we should be able to convince him to increase security and put monitors on the water systems. Though…” Anakin tapped his fingers on the dashboard. “…if we do nothing and simply allow them to sabotage the system with the Zone, we have an advantage.”

  Obi-Wan frowned. “We do?”

  “The Jedi will not be affected, but our enemy won’t know that. Omega and the Slams will be lulled into the belief that they have succeeded. In other words, we give them what they want in the beginning. But we control the outcome.”

  “But Anakin, that means exposing thousands of beings to the Zone.”

  “It’s not toxic. The beings will have an extraordinarily pleasant morning, that’s all.”

  Obi-Wan’s frown grew deeper. “We don’t know that. You experienced it early on. We don’t know what Zan Arbor has done to it since then. Are you forgetting the four workers who died?”

  “But we have every reason to believe the system has been perfected.” Anakin hesitated. He could see that he had displeased his Master. “But of course we don’t know that for sure. So we must guard the entry ports to the system so the Zone cannot be deployed.”

  Obi-Wan nodded. “Anything else?”

  Anakin thought briefly. “No. Not at the moment.”

  “I agree. Let’s go.”

  They headed for the Senate. While Obi-Wan called ahead to request a meeting with Chancellor Palpatine, Anakin brooded on his mistake. He had seen the uneasiness in his Master’s eyes, though it had passed quickly. Sometimes he made mistakes and wasn’t sure why they were wrong. He knew that his Master’s deepest desire was to capture Omega. Anakin wondered how much it was permissible to risk in order to accomplish that. How much risk was too much? Who was best to judge? He wished he could ask Obi-Wan those questions, but he didn’t want to displease him further.

  As soon as they arrived at the Chancellor’s office, they were ushered in to see him. He stood at the large window behind his desk, ready to receive them.

  “Sly Moore tells me this is urgent,” he said. “She is not accustomed to such vehemence. I hope it’s not bad news.”

  “Well, that depends,” Obi-Wan said. Quickly, he filled Palpatine in on what they had discovered and what they suspected.

  “Naturally,” Obi-Wan concluded, “the best thing to do is to cancel the ceremony.”

  “I think not,” Palpatine said. “This fund has been the result of years of steady work on the part of many worlds. It is a tribute to the very ideals the Galactic Senate was founded upon originally—cooperation and benevolence. I hardly think that canceling the
ceremony would help us in any way.”

  Anakin wasn’t surprised, and neither was Obi-Wan.

  “Then security must be increased,” Obi-Wan said.

  “I assure you, the best measures are already in place,” Palpatine said. “And I have every confidence in the Jedi’s abilities to forestall these villains.”

  “Then the water system should be shut off in that quadrant.”

  “And disrupt thousands of lives?” Palpatine looked impatient. “We will monitor the system, of course. Place guards on the entry points. That won’t be difficult. If we know there will be an attempt, we will be able to foil it. Now, I have the distasteful task of having to attend a procedural hearing with Senator Divinian.” Palpatine directed his gaze at Obi-Wan. “May I borrow your apprentice? I think it could be a valuable experience for him.”

  Obi-Wan nodded. “I’ll return to the Temple and talk to Master Windu and Siri,” he told Anakin. “Keep in contact.”

  Anakin watched Obi-Wan stride out of the office. He would rather be leaving with him, but he had asked to be included in the Chancellor’s meetings, so he had to go.

  “Capturing this Omega is important to your Master,” Palpatine remarked as they left the office and started down the hall.

  “It’s important to the galaxy,” Anakin said. “He’s a dangerous enemy.”

  “Yes, but not the most dangerous enemy,” Palpatine said. “From my experience, the most dangerous enemy is the one you can’t see.”

  They drew up in front of a hearing room and walked inside. It was small and private. A long table took up most of the room, with seats equipped with repulsorlift motors that could adjust to the differing heights of many species. Bog sat in a seat at the center of the long table, with Bail Organa opposite him.

  Bog spoke into his data recorder in a low tone. “Supreme Chancellor arrived. Meeting will start on time.”

  Chancellor Palpatine sat at the head of the table and indicated that Anakin take a seat behind him. Bog half-rose, then sat again, as if uncertain what protocol to follow.